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Clubbing in Portugal? Pay by card

Most good nightclubs in the UK cost you a small fortune before you’ve even hung up your coat, but in Portugal most places don’t fleece you on the door. Walk in for free, in most clubs, and they give you a piece of card with some blank spaces on it and all you have to do to get out is show you have bought a drink or two.

Some clubs have a two drink minimum and some only one, but whatever you do (and this is the important bit) don’t buy a round and get all the drinks stamped on to one card.

If you try to leave the club and one of you has bought ten drinks while the other nine haven’t bought any, the other nine will be politely told to go back to the bar and get spending. Each person’s card must show the minimum order. Get it wrong, and you might end up like a friend of mine who, on his first visit to Portugal, got in a fight with a bouncer because he said he’d bought the required minimum even though the bouncer said he hadn’t.